Case Study: Sony Computer Entertainment

"NewsNow is a great tool for monitoring global news about our products. I
particularly like the fact that we get updates every five minutes. The most
important thing is that it's invaluable when you are dealing with a
crisis. For that you need to have a live feed to monitor how the news is developing
minute by minute worldwide"

Customer need

Sony Computer Entertainment needed a service that would enable it to monitor
news worldwide in different languages, particularly when managing issues in
102 territories worldwide.

Our solution

12 newsfeeds covered individual markets including
Australia, France, Slovakia and the UK. Each newsfeed monitored any mention of
Sony Computer, PlayStation, PS2, PS one AND PS3 as well as tracking competitors.

What Nick Sharples, head of corporate communication,
Sony Computer Entertainment, had to say

We were responding to an issue that affected our products in a number of
territories and we needed to know exactly how it was being reported
anywhere in the world.

How did you specify what you wanted?

We gave NewsNow a list of all the websites we wanted tracked, allowing them
to add any they didn't already track. This amounted to between 8 and 10 per
territory covering ten territories.

What other considerations were in play?

It had to be technically straightforward and available 24/7. The
implementation was easy. The only issue we had was that some subscription
sites we nominated could not be crawled and had to be left out.

Can you describe who benefits and how?

The staff in our territories and all marketing personnel. That's about 45
people in total. But soon we are going to put the newsfeed onto our intranet
bringing it to 3,500 people in 102 territories.

What difference is it making to your news monitoring?

There's a big difference. We wanted to track all the news so it's something of
a revolution being able to do it. I particularly like the fact that we get
updates every five minutes. The most important thing is that it's invaluable
when you are dealing with a crisis. For that you need to have a live feed to
monitor how the news is developing minute by minute worldwide.

How much has it been adapted since installation?

We have added a few keywords but with our products' names being variations on
the word PlayStation it's fairly straightforward.

Where do you see it going from here?

I think we have pretty much what we want now. It's just a case of improving
the way we monitor the news in different countries.